Possible, or Plausible, or True
by Cimbeline
Summary: Hermione Granger overthinks things when she's nervous.


You look at me with searching eyes. I stare at the rug.

I'm blushing. I can feel it. Just like your gaze. Ehgm. I feel like coughing so you stop gaping, but MERLIN.

Don't touch me. Please. Leave me alone, with my ancient runes essay, because I'd much prefer your company but as it happens to be Lent...

Never mind. Lent isn't for a while, and I've never observed before.

So. Right.

I'm forced to meet your gaze, however, when you sit sprawled across from me at my little corner table in the library. I push a stack of books away with my wandtip, so I can just see the right side of your face-

It's your better side, I swear-

Back to the present. I fix my features into a mask of pissed-off self rightousness, and you smirk. Please don't. I snap at you: "Well, if you have nothing to say.."

And I push the stack of books right back where they were. Oh. Good bye Draco's right side. Ah well. Runes essay.

Right. Finished that one-

three hours ago?

Ehm.

_"Because you never yet have loved me, dear,_

_Think you never can nor ever will?_

_Surely while life remains hope lingers still,_

_Hope the last blossom of life's dying year._

_Because the season and mine age grow sere,_

_Shall never Spring bring forth her daffodil,_

_Shall never sweeter Summer feast her fill_

_Of roses with the nightingales they hear?"_

A poem. I found it, on a little corner of parchment, scrawled haphazardly in purple ink. A proper inky purple, mind you, not lavender.

I found this little poem falling out of an anthology of famous wood nymphs. I've kept it though. Something about the daffodil line..

Wood nymphs, I ask you.

Actually, I _don't _ask you, because you've left.

Damn.

I close my books and sigh.

Daffodils. Also known as the Narcissus flower. Your mother's name, Narcissa? If I'm correct?

Well,_of course_ I'm correct.

Narcissus. My favorite story.

There was once a young man, who was the most beautiful and finely shaped man to ever walk the earth. He was even thought to be a demi-god by some.

Narcissus spent his days by the lakeside, staring affectionately at his reflection in the cool, cool water. One day, Narcissus thought that he had seen a flaw in his face, and bent closer to the surface of the lake.

He fell in, and drowned, for he had no one to teach him to swim.

I usually end the story there, but there IS more.

Something about the lake only caring about Narcissus' death for it could no longer see the beauty of its depths in Narcissus' eyes.

Whatever. Never liked the end.

But I do like the rest of the story.

I'm fascinated with it as I am with you- parallels- both too beautiful for words, both so lonely.

I want to help you there, but I'm far too intimidated. Who wouldn't be? A blond demi-god in my presence.

So. I'd teach you to swim, if only you'd let me. If only I'd let myself.

I have, by this time, gathered my books and headed back to my dorm. My head girl's dorm, partner to your head boy's dorm, though even they are so close, it's as if there are miles of silence between us.

_"At first, there was absolute silence._

_And at least, there was absolute silence._

_In between, it's a(n)_

_Emotional silence, that'd kill with bare hands_

_Quiet silence, uncomfortable and unwanted_

_Subdued silence, waiting in the wings"_

Silent. quiet. soft. cottony.

Whatever, once again.

Ah. It seems you've taken the gentlemanly route tonight, and have thus decided that I need to be taunted once more before I retire for the night.

You're sitting on one of the couches, unceremoniously dumped as you were in the library (where I caught a glimpse of your right side- though arguably both sides of your face are equally agreeable)

And you stare at me.

I look at the carpet. I blush. I toe the carpet.

It's like a bad television sitcom.

Cue audience laughter at Hermione Granger's obvious ineptitude at the ways of romanticism.

You stride toward me, and my heart is beating-

"_Come now, I must tell you as soon as we meet,_

_the wildest secrets of my lonely heartbeat."_

faster as you approach me-

and then.

You've pressed your lips to mine?

I've stopped trying to apply logic and reading- sorry, _meaning_- to it-

because

"_Have you ever sat and listened to the river flow?_

_Did you ever think that I would fill your desires?"_

And now I think , to myself, that anything was _possible, or plausible, or true._

Hopeful, now, as you've stopped kissing me- though I was a participant as well-

you will explain to me now.

I can hear your heart beat, faster than a hummingbird's wings, something beautiful nestled in your ribcage.

You say nothing, but our eyes meet- funny how that's possible now- and in them ring true-

_I love you_.

* * *

A/N: Poetry (italicized text) excerpted from:

"Touching 'Never'" by Christina Rossetti

"Questions to Someone???" by Robert Kerry Gardiner

"Heartbeat" by Joyce Hemsley and John William McGrath III

"Silence" by Venkata Majeti

Also, the blond demi-god reference is wholly and reverently attributed to Maladroit Mate.


End file.
